Reporters with Borders: P-I Mum on ePaper

It's the surest sign something is true when reporters get a "no comment" from someone. And there was the P-I's Dan Richman today, getting one no comment after another - from his own fellow reporters. The question? Is the P-I going to go online only after its print edition likely folds, and will you be part of it?

To Richmond, it was clearly "further indication that Hearst, which owns the P-I, is leaning toward starting an online-only version of the P-I." A P-I reporter - sigh, also asking not to be named - tells us the silence leaves no doubt a new ePI will be launched, likely scrapping at least one of several efforts proposed by departing employees to initiate their own web sites.

Reporter Hector Castro, at least, isn't going quietly. He told Richman he was offered an online job that came with a salary cut, no severance pay, no vacation carry over, and no overtime pay. He turned it down mostly because he saw it as a tech job. Castro earlier told us he was likely leaving journalism because he wants to work at a big city print newspaper. Unfortunately, many are dying, and the survivors aren't hiring.